Business can do well by doing good

Oct. 5, 2012

Chad Oliphant and Sarah Yancey have demonstrated that a business can do well by doing good.

Oliphant and Yancey run Smiling Hara Tempeh, a 2-year-old startup operated out of Blue Ridge Food Ventures’ shared commercial kitchen in Candler. Last spring they faced a crisis that would have been fatal for many businesses. But not for them. The secret of their success was in their response.

The crisis was a salmonella outbreak that sickened 89 people in Western North Carolina. The illness was traced back to the tempeh, an unpasteurized whole-bean product popular as a meat substitute in vegetarian cuisine, produced by Smiling Hara.

What did they do? They immediately called all 30 of their customers, restaurants and food stores, and voluntarily recalled all their product. “It was just the most honest response we could give,” Oliphant said.

“They way they handled the (outbreak) made me feel even better about the company,” said Rosanne Kiely, owner of West Village Market. “They came in person and offered to haul off the stuff for us. ... They just took care of it so quickly and honestly. They didn’t waste a second. And for me, it really speaks to the fact that they really do care about the community’s health.”

But they did more, a lot more. They shut down production for three months while they reviewed all their procedures. Blue Ridge Food Ventures halted all production for two weeks and did an extensive environmental review of its facilities.

As it turned out, the problem was not local. A contamination was in a starter culture purchased from a Maryland distributor that may have obtained it from Indonesia. We say “may have” because the response from Tempeh Online, unlike that of Smiling Tempeh, has been to hunker down.

There’s a lesson here about the virtues of local food. Olphant and Yancey know their customers. The folks who run Tempeh Online don’t. The outbreak “provides a perfect example of why it’s better to know the people who make our food, especially when accidents happen,” according to Mike’s blog on drinkbuchi.com.

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Happily for Oliphant and Yancey, their loyalty has been repaid. Several of Smiling Hara’s customers did not ask for a refund of the money they had paid for the product. Almost all the previous customers have returned, and several new accounts have been added, Yancey said.

“I am so glad they could rally the community,” Kiely said. “That’s what it takes to get back up and start again. It’s kind of like they picked up where they left off.” She said her market is selling as much tempeh as before the outbreak.

This is not the first time a local business has demonstrated the importance of candor when dealing with a health issue. In 1998, an employee of Laurey’s Catering came down with hepatitis A, a virus that attacks the liver.

“I did stand out in front of my shop and told the truth,” said owner Laurey Masterton. “We were overt and called every single one of those 1,000 (customers). We didn’t plan on that, but hiding was not an option.”

As with Smiling Hara Tempeh, Masterton’s candor was rewarded. The day after the Health Department reported the infection, supporters staged a lunch-in at what then was Laurey’s 14-seat eatery. “I thought I was gone,” Masterton said. “The people in the community rallied in such a huge way.”

Oliphant was moved by the response to Smiling Hara’s plight. “When people reached out to us to lift us back up, it’s extremely humbling,” he said.

That’s what happens when you consider your customers to be your friends.